


Anenome

by orphan_account



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Modern AU, Slow Burn, hopefully i actually write this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-08 11:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17385587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: She likes painting walls, and apparently getting her heart stolen by clueless coffee shop baristas.





	1. A short introduction.

The worst part was having to wash it off.

The paint. Not blood or anything. She was a graffiti artist, and although some people seemed to think otherwise, graffiti didn’t involve murder.

Her hands were covered in blues and greens, which she has always questioned how it’s even possible if she’s using spray paint. She always managed to get it off, but her hands went from being whatever color paint she was using to red from scraping old rough paint-stained cloth against them.

Her most recent mural was a Japanese Anemone. She seemed to have a strong tie to painting flowers, as was pointed out to her by her first girlfriend.

Ramona Summers, her first girlfriend, was 14 when they dated. They eventually broke it off because Ramona turned out to be straight. There were no hard feelings between them, more because they were middle schoolers at the time than anything. 

She still holds Ramona close to her heart. Ramona was not only her first girlfriend, but her first relationship, and even though it was a chaotic mess of middle school hormones and homophobia, she still treasures the good times she had.

She always knew she was gay, even if there wasn’t a conscious word for it the whole time. She always found herself looking at the girls in the movies and being jealous of the guys who kissed them. And then she kissed a girl for herself and her heart exploded into the highest high she had ever felt; higher than any paint fumes she could inhale could make her.

She’s always felt a fondness towards art, particularly painting over anything. Graffiti felt right to her, the sense of working against standards and making the world her own. She’s never been one for the bandwagon, so she made her own float.

 

“What can I get you?” the pretty white-haired girl at the counter asked. After washing her hands off and de-painting herself, she walked over to the nearby coffee shop.

“Medium Coffee, lots of cream and five sugars please,” she spoke.

“And a name for the order?” the girl requested.

“Ruby.”


	2. Never a problem

“Alright Ruby, that’ll be $3.75 please.”

 

Ruby always wore a respirator when she was out graffitiing, which meant she never got paint on her face. But after leaving that coffee shop, her face was red as if she sprayed herself intentionally. The girl at the counter had such a sweet face and voice and hair and…

“Fuck,” Ruby said, quietly to the empty mall courtyard. She probably should have worn a jacket, as it was the middle of January and after seven p.m. She thought maybe the cold would bring her down from her random high from a single thirty second encounter, so she sat herself on a bench as she took a sip from her coffee.

She sat there for fifteen minutes, her exposed skin tinted a pale pink as the cold bit at her, and she still couldn’t get the girl off her mind.

“What the hell.”

She put the coffee in a nearby garbage can, completely missing the small note left on it, and walked back into the shop. 

 

The girl her heart had chained itself to was cleaning off the counter. It seemed like she was the only one on shift at the time.

“Oh hey, you’re back!” she said cheerfully.

“H-Hey, so this might sound strange, but you seem really cool and I wanna be your friend so can I have your-” The girl ripped off a page from her notepad and handed it to Ruby. It contained a phone number and the name “Weiss Schnee”

“Weess?” Ruby said curiously. Weiss choked, trying to avoid laughing too loudly.

“It’s pronounced ‘Wice’, like rice if you swapped out the ‘R’ for a ‘W’.” Ruby tried to ignore the temptation to relate it back to the ‘hewwo?’ meme.

“Ah okay. Well, Weiss is a pretty name. I’ll send you a picture of my dog so you know it’s me,” Ruby said as she was turning to leave the establishment.

“Wait! I’m about to close, I’ll walk you home! Can you just hang on for, like, 10 minutes? I’ll let you wait inside, since you look cold,” Weiss pleaded. Ruby was glad that her full-body blush was mistaken for cold, even though she was cold. Her sweatshirt did not protect against the heat well.

“Okay, sure!” She sat down in a chair, instinctively crossing her legs, and leaned back in the chair. 

“Did you see my little note?” Weiss asked her from across the small establishment. Ruby’s eyes widened.

“Oh, uh, no. Sorry. What did it say?” Ruby asked, completely ashamed of herself.

“It doesn’t matter, I was just complimenting your shirt. That’s all,” Weiss answered, mildly stuttering. Ruby looked down at the shirt she haphazardly threw on after changing out of her paint-stained clothes. It was a white ‘The 1975’ sweatshirt she got from the concert she went to in the fall of 2016 with her sister.

“Oh, thanks!” Ruby responded. The room went awkwardly quiet. “So, uh, what’s your favourite song by them?” 

Weiss answered without looking up. “People always question me when I answer with ‘The 1975’ from the Like The Way You Sleep album, because it’s not one of their best songs but it’s an important one to me. Also ‘Loving Someone’ is really good.” She continued cleaning up the establishment, before heading into the back to grab a mop and bucket. “I need to stack up all the chairs, so I’m gonna need you to stand, if that’s okay,” she said.

Ruby giggled. “I’m sure standing will not kill me, so I think I’m okay with that.” Weiss laughed at that. Ruby cursed her heart’s awful balance falling for such a simple yet beautiful sound. “Do you like any other bands?” Ruby asked. 

The two talked about bands ranging from Panic! at the Disco to Twenty One Pilots to Ariana Grande to Conan Gray and a whole slew of artists. Weiss talked about how the first concert she ever got to see was Declan McKenna. 

Eventually, they did have to leave. The two left the shopping centre, Ruby slightly behind Weiss as she took in the beauty of the yellow lights contrasting the white-ish blue snow. Ruby still hadn’t miraculously manifested a jacket to protect her from the cold, and of course it had started snowing. Her arms instinctively crossed themselves to protect herself from the cold, her legs very quickly turned a soft shade of pink through the holes in her jeans. Her teeth clattered quietly and inexorably.

“Would you like a jacket?” Weiss asked. Ruby shook her head mendaciously. “Yes you would, you’re freezing. I’m wearing two, here.” Weiss unzipped the sweater she was wearing and handed it to Ruby. 

“Seriously! I’m fine.” Weiss wasn’t giving Ruby any choice. She put the coat around Ruby’s shoulders before she even knew what was happening. 

“There! Now you’ll be at least a little bit warmer,” Weiss said cheerfully. She smiled softly at Ruby, who was emotionally frozen in awe at Weiss’s… Weiss. She put her arms through the sleeves of the hoodie. It was a little big on her, but she liked it that way. It was also very soft and warm, and had a vanilla aroma.

“Thank you, Weiss,” Ruby mumbled softly. ‘God, I’m such a bottom,’ she thought to herself. 

“Never a problem, Ruby,” Weiss said. Ruby had to fight every urge to kiss her right then and there. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Well, this is my stop. Thank you for lending me your hoodie,” Ruby said as she unzipped the jacket and handed it back to Weiss.

“Again, never a problem. I appreciated the company, even if you live in the opposite direction from my work.” Ruby hoped to god she was kidding.

“Well, I’ll text you once I get inside. My phone is dead, so I gotta charge it up. Thanks again!”

Weiss pulled Ruby into a friendly hug. Ruby was now entirely red. It took her brain a second to reboot itself from being absolutely fried by the amount of lesbian energy run through it in such a short time before she hugged back. Weiss pulled away after a few seconds. 

“See you later!”

“God I hope so,” Ruby mumbled. After getting inside she was surprised to find her pulse at under 400,000 bpm, because considering the array of events, it was entirely reasonable for her heart rate to be sky high.


	3. Transit

“BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!!”

Ruby reached out her arm and waved it around to swat away what was making the horrendous sound. Eventually, her arm met a face.

“Ow!! Ruby… that hurt,” a voice spoke. Ruby rolled over to face the voice.

“That’s what you get, Yang.” Yang Xao Long, Ruby’s older step-sister. About six inches taller than her, with much longer blonde hair and an eccentric personality. 

“I was just waking you up for school, jeez. Calm yourself, sis,” Yang said spitefully as she left the room. 

“I don’t HAVE school!!” Ruby yelled back at her. 

Ruby and Yang shared a small rental unit together, with Yang enrolled in college and Ruby taking a gap year to figure out what she wants to do. While she is figuring that out, she works at a local grocery store to keep money flowing so that she can pay her half of rent, groceries, and the other necessities. Yang also has a job, but because she’s enrolled in school she gets less hours. She has a better job, so at the end of the month she’s made about the same as Ruby in less time to accommodate.

“No, I have school. You have a job, which you need to be at in an hour,” Yang returned. Ruby sprung out of bed in a panic and quickly hopped in the shower. She swore she heard Yang giggling at something.

While in the shower, Ruby took the time to relay the previous night’s events in her mind and properly process them. She was definitely crushing hard on Weiss, and she hated herself for it. The two of them had only just met, and she’s never fallen for someone so quickly. As she coated her skin in soap, her mind began to wander as she considered how Weiss appeared when she was-

“Nope! We’re NOT thinking about that today!” Ruby blurted out. The mirror was fogged, so she couldn’t tell, but her face was a deep shade of crimson. 

Eventually she managed to think about something else, and then actually clean herself before she hopped out, quickly dried herself, and just as quickly got dressed. She put her short hair in a beanie, which Yang constantly questioned, because “You could just blow-dry it, Ruby.”

“Blow-drying takes longer than just letting it air-dry,” She always responded with. 

 

Work was a slog. It made decent money, but that didn’t mean she wholeheartedly enjoyed it. Customers were cruel and mean, her coworkers, while some were nice, the majority were either creepy or rude. Generally it wasn’t a very fun experience. It was easy enough, though. She hardly had any downtime, which she liked. Having a lot to do is better than nothing at all. 

Well, apparently not today. Today was the slowest in months. She could probably fall asleep at her till and nobody would really care until half an hour later when someone finally actually enters the store. She opted not to risk being fired. 

The six hour mostly empty and soul sucking shift finally came to a close as she heard the clock in the store out six loud chimes to signify the store was closing in an hour. The exact second she heard the first chime she walked away from her nearly unused and therefore perfectly tidied till and into the back to pull her stuff from her locker. She checked her phone as she left. “6:05PM,” it read. She was unsurprised by how fast she left, considering she had a habit for packing up incredibly quick. It was Yang’s night for dinner, and Yang didn’t like Ruby to be late, so Ruby popped in her earbuds, put on a random playlist, and started walking home.

 

 

* * *

  
  


 

Yang wasn’t even home by the time Ruby got there. She saw a note on the counter, scribbled in Yang’s messy handwriting, saying she was with Blake. Ruby rolled her eyes at the note and giggled to herself in the empty house. 

She got undressed from work and had a quick shower before she grabbed her bag of paint gear and headed back out. She was working on a mural downtown, though she hadn’t quite decided what she wanted it to be yet. She knew it would come to her with time, so she just kept working on it and let it unfold. She wanted to break out of her mold of only painting flowers, so she was trying to avoid it turning into that.

The train didn’t take long to get to where she was being picked up. She was the only one waiting on the platform, so it was gone as quickly as it arrived. 

The car was mostly empty, save for a few businessmen who were on their way either home or into work for a night shift, as well as one familiar white-haired barista. Ruby’s gay heart wanted desperately to sit next to her, but she was against it out of fear of awkwardness.

And of course Weiss had to wave at her. 

“Hi! Where are you off to?” Weiss said in her painfully beautiful voice that made Ruby all the more gay.

“I’m heading downtown to paint a mural, what about you?” Ruby replied, managing to not throw herself over her friend.

“On my way to meet some friends.” Weiss seemed different than when they first met. Not too different, so Ruby brushed off the concern. 

“Neat!” Ruby chirped.

The two sat in silence for a few seconds. Not an uncomfortable silence, though. Weiss gave Ruby a comfortable energy; she felt like she could let her guard down around her without any worry.

Eventually though, Ruby did have to get off the train. Her stop quickly approached, leaving her the decision of whether to actually go work on her mural or spend more time with Weiss. She fought about it for the eternity that her brain created that only lasted three real world seconds.

She painfully stood up from her seat.

“Well, this is my stop. I’ll see you on the flipside, pal!”

“Goodbye, Ruby,” Weiss replied, emotionally faded. Ruby was left with a slight concern, but had to put that concern aside so she could actually get off the train.

 

The walk to her mural was short. The work was on a retaining wall facing the harbor, only visible to ships entering and leaving the harbor and to people who are specifically seeking it out. She pulled out her respirator from her bag and put it on, and then grabbed one of her spray cans and got to work.


End file.
